


the tower

by Kaesa



Series: Kaesa's Whumptober 2020 fics [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Brief depiction of wide-scale disaster & grief, Buried Alive, Burning alive, Captivity, Crowley is an urban planning nerd, F/M, Female Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication, Natural Disasters, Tower of Babel, Whumptober 2020, guest appearance by Ea-Nasir, pregnancy mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/pseuds/Kaesa
Summary: Aziraphale's lunch plans with Crawly in Babylon are disrupted when a tower falls on him.  Suddenly he can't understand anyone except for his turncoat coworker, and neither she nor Crawly are at all helpful when he's abducted by demons and held prisoner in Hell.  Was this all one of Crawly's insidious demonic plans?  (And why did she take so long at that copper merchant's, anyway?)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Kaesa's Whumptober 2020 fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984711
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	the tower

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2020, for the prompts "Running Out of Time” (collapsed building, buried alive); "Where Do You Think You’re Going?” (rescue, failed escape); "Where Did Everybody Go?” (abandoned); “Psych 101" (defiance); “I Think I’ve Broken Something” (broken trust); “Is Something Burning?” (fire); “You’re Not Making Any Sense” (blindfolded, sensory deprivation); “OK, Who Had Natural Disasters On Their 2020 Bingo Card?” (earthquake, power outage); and "I Think I Need A Doctor” (reluctant bedrest).
> 
> There is some brief probably-screenreader-unfriendly dialogue in bad, copy-pasted Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Semitic. It is not meant to be understood or easily pronounceable.

Aziraphale had arrived in Babylon two days earlier, and had run into Crawly almost immediately. He had been a little anxious that she would resent him; the Flood had been a very difficult time for everyone, and though he of course didn't agree with her conclusions about Heaven, he did understand why she'd been so upset. But she'd lit up when he'd waved at her, and greeted him very warmly, and said she knew a good tavern, only just now she had some very urgent business with a copper merchant, and could they meet up in a day or two?

And so they'd made arrangements, and he'd spent the next couple days wandering through the streets of the city. Babylon was very beautiful this time of year, and it was especially lovely to see how well humanity was working together these days. That tower thing they were building particularly intrigued him; he wondered whether Heaven might make bring a copy of it up into the clouds to look at, as they had begun to do with some of humanity's creations. You could see it from all over the city, and so it served not only as a beautiful building but a useful navigational aid.

Crawly had suggested they meet at the foot of it, but judging by the sun, Aziraphale thought he had time to go up the tower.

Five floors up, he began to have doubts. Fifteen floors up, he started to think perhaps he ought to have started this journey earlier, or flown. Thirty floors, and he had to stop and rest. There was simply too much tower. So he leaned over the side and looked down upon the bustling city of Babylon. It was very lovely. Aziraphale tried to pick out a flash of red hair somewhere in the crowd below, but he couldn't see one just yet.

"What are _you_ doing here?" said somebody, sounding annoyed, and worried, and maybe a little bit angry, and Aziraphale turned, expecting to see an engineer or an architect, but it wasn't a human at all.

"Nisroc! Good Lord, I wasn't expecting to see you here," he said. "Did you get transferred up from Ur?"

She looked harried. She looked _terrible_ , actually; she was wearing more clothes than Aziraphale had ever seen her wear, and no jewelry, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Although she must be eating properly, at least, because she'd definitely put on some weight, to the point that if he had not known she was an angel, he would have assumed she was pregnant. "Something like that, yeah," she said, her eyes darting out into the crowd. "Some career... transferring... stuff. What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Well -- well, if you must know I'm meeting a f-- an acquaintance," said Aziraphale. "Is... is everything all right?"

"Fine, I'm fine, everything's fine," she said, quickly. "Just, um, they're... making me do some evaluation stuff, and I'm a little nervous."

"Oh, you'll do well," said Aziraphale, gently. "It'll all be all right in the end, I'm certain." He tried to make it sound like he had faith in her abilities, which he mostly did, but Nisroc had been a Seraph, and Michael was very fond of her -- perhaps a little bit too fond of her, the gossip suggested -- and he couldn't imagine her failing, even if she deserved it. The last time they'd seen each other, Nisroc had been experimenting with novel ways of getting humans to listen to him, and had set himself up as some sort of fertility deity. It was the sort of thing nobody else could have got away with, but Nisroc had been doing it for centuries, apparently, and had been very proud of his temple, complete with a cadre of attractive, scantily-clad priests and priestesses.

Maybe the fertility deity business was why she was pretending to be pregnant now. That seemed a little gauche to Aziraphale, but he'd been uncomfortable with the whole thing, so what did he know?

"Yeah, yeah, I bet it'll all be fine," she said, though she did not appear to believe it. "Listen, Aziraphale, I think you should leave. Don't want them thinking you're interfering with my evaluations and all. Maybe don't even take the stairs?"

He stared at her. "You want me to _fly?_ " he asked, horrified. "But all those humans down there --"

"It's fine, they're fine, just get out of here, okay? I need this to go well," she said. She looked down at all the people in the streets below. "Fuck," she muttered.

"Really, I don't think you need to worry so much," said Aziraphale. "Everybody knows Michael will --"

"Oh, yeah, she'll definitely be here, and _you don't want to be here when she gets here,_ " she snapped. "I don't have any miracles right now, and if something goes wrong --"

"You don't have any miracles?" Aziraphale asked. "Why on Earth not?"

Nisroc made an angry, incoherent sort of noise. "Look, you're in the wrong place, this is the wrong time, I have not gone a day without puking for, like, I don't know how long even, but way too long! I'm tired and my feet hurt and my back hurts and I am trying _very_ hard to make you leave but if I have to throw you off this tower, so help me..." She trailed off. "Oh," she said, in a very small voice. "Oh, I guess no one's going to help me, actually. Oh, God." She blinked, and tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving great black streaks on her face from her makeup.

Aziraphale felt sorry for her then, because she sounded so lost. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked.

"You can _fuck off!_ " she snarled, looking wild and terrible and desperate. "Leave! Go away! Please!"

"Well." Aziraphale pursed his lips. "Well, I do hope everything goes better than you think it will, but if you insist..." And he started down the stairs. There were quite a lot of them. He wondered if perhaps Nisroc had done something even Michael couldn't countenance, but he couldn't imagine what it might be.

When he got to the bottom of the tower, he circled the base of it, looking for Crawly. She wasn't anywhere, and he wondered if perhaps she knew about Nisroc's evaluations; whether she had come here specifically to ruin them. That wasn't a very charitable thought, he told himself, and he tried not to think too much about it, but Crawly _was_ a demon, and she did seem to pride herself on her good (bad) work.

What Aziraphale did not notice, until it was too late, was the sky darkening with clouds, and the rumbling of thunder in the distance, and then he joined the humans in looking up at the sky in alarm, as lightning crackled through the clouds. It felt rather like Heavenly wrath, and Aziraphale suddenly worried that there was going to be another flood and he hadn't got the memo.

But it was the ground that struck first -- a distant rumble became a shaking roar, and bricks began to fall from the tower before it lurched forward, and --

It happened too fast for Aziraphale to be aware of it, consciously, but he dropped to the ground and spread his wings over his head, and sent out scattered miracles towards the humans nearby, before several tons of stone fell on all their heads. The roar was horrendous, and Aziraphale's ears rang for a minute or more. Eventually, as his sense of hearing slowly returned to him, he heard the humans screaming and crying, and he made his way slowly and painfully to his feet, folding his broken wings into another dimension.

He looked around at the rubble for signs of life. Whether this was part of Nisroc’s test or not, Aziraphale knew he had to do _something._ He knew there were survivors there somewhere; he'd been the one to save them. As he pulled rocks off of a woman who had miraculously been sheltered from the worst of the bricks, but was still unconscious, he thought about whatever Nisroc was so distressed about, and wondered whether Crawly was all right, and a terrible thought occurred to him. Had Crawly _known_ about this disaster? Had she suggested the meeting place on purpose?

She _was_ a demon. And she had been very angry with Heaven -- and with him? -- last time he'd seen her.

The idea upset him more than it should have. It wasn't as if they were _friends_ \-- they were an angel and a demon, for Heaven's sake. But still... there was something... nice about running into somebody you'd known for so long, and she was very kind for a demon. Her heart was in the right place. He'd thought it was, anyway.

He tried to put it out of his mind and concentrate on finding as many humans as he could to pull them out of the rubble and heal them. He even revived a few of the dead ones -- the children, mainly, because Crawly's words just before the flood kept echoing in his mind. As far as he knew, Crawly hadn't gone off and saved any of those children, she'd only been griping. _Aziraphale_ was the one doing something useful.

But an odd trend was starting to show itself, for every human he found who was conscious seemed to have got the exact sort of bump on the head that made them not speak properly, so he couldn't even explain what had happened. They'd talk to him, in gibberish, and he'd try to be reassuring, but they didn't seem to understand at all. It had been worrying on the first human he'd pulled from the rubble, but by the time he'd reached twelve, he was beginning to suspect demonic intervention.

(And what sort of business had Crawly had with that copper merchant, anyway? She'd been awfully cagey about it. Although, try as he might, Aziraphale couldn't think of anything particularly nefarious about the copper business, or how it might connect to a building collapsing.)

He was standing to the side taking a breather, for the hot sun and the dust had made it hard not to cough, when all his suspicions about demonic involvement in the disaster were confirmed, and three fellows -- three _demons,_ specifically -- grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him into an alley. They all looked the same, so Aziraphale assumed they were that Legion one (that Legion many, rather) that Crawly always complained about. One of them said something to Aziraphale, sounding very demanding, but he didn't understand any of the words.

"I'm sorry, didn't quite catch that," he said, apologetically.

They all looked at each other. Then they started shouting gibberish at him, and Aziraphale realized they were just as confused as he was.

"Listen," he said, "you're not making a lot of sense. Did you hit your heads?" he asked. It was cruel of him, and he felt a bit bad about it, but he was going to find it very funny if they'd caused this awful disaster only to have it fall on their heads, literally. Aziraphale didn't think there was a word for that, but there probably ought to be.

The demons gabbled at him. They did seem to understand each other, which was unusual, and one of them shushed the others and began to speak very loudly and slowly to Aziraphale. "tuH gʷʰen- káput?" the demon shouted at him.

"Oh, this is absurd," said Aziraphale. "Can't you just heal yourselves?"

The shouty demon turned to his comrades. "gʰabʰ sekʷ-dyēus gʷʰerm-per-pōds," he told them, and they nodded, like that made sense. They made to grab him again, but Aziraphale reflexively spread his wings in self-defense -- and instantly was in agony. He had forgotten how horribly broken they were, and it turned out that having his wings out made it much, much easier for them to chain him up, because he could claw and bite and kick all he wanted, but one of the demons had seized his left wing and whenever he yanked on it the pain was unbearable.

"steH₂!" one of the demons snarled at him once they'd got the manacles on, and Aziraphale got to his feet, miserably.

They seemed about to lead him away, when one of them said "h₂éngʷʰis!"

"h₂éngʷʰis?" the other two asked, confused, and then Crawly ran up to them, breathing hard. Aziraphale hoped she would be able to sort this out, and that she hadn't, in fact, been part of this at all.

"ʔarbay!" she shouted at the three demons, and they paused what they were doing, and looked at each other.

" _tuH_ gʷʰen- káput?" one of them asked him.

Crawly looked despairing at this. "ḳudš?" she asked, apparently addressing Aziraphale. She looked so hopeful.

"Ah. I'm afraid I can't understand you either," he said.

Crawly sighed. "ʔVšk!" she said vehemently, and Aziraphale didn't really have to know the word to know what sense she'd meant it in. She began to argue with the other demons, gesturing frequently at Aziraphale, and he got the impression she was trying to talk them into giving Aziraphale to her. But they didn't seem to understand her reasoning any more than Aziraphale did, and finally the three demons started walking away from her, dragging Aziraphale along with them, Crawly trailing behind, looking worried. She kept trying to speak comfortingly to Aziraphale, but the only word he could make out consistently was "ḳudš," and he could not imagine what this was supposed to mean.

They came then to an open portal to Hell, which was never a comforting sight -- it looked like a simple doorway, but the stairs and the darkness beyond suggested they went down further than any basement in Babylon had any right to be.

The other demons insisted Crawly go through first, and after another incoherent argument, she did, looking apologetically to Aziraphale as she began the long descent.

"You little assholes ready to go?" said a voice full of brittle cheer, and Aziraphale turned with a shock to see that Nisroc was standing behind them, accompanied by another one of the Legions. She still looked horrible -- she had clearly been crying more -- and Aziraphale felt terrible for her until he realized that _she wasn't chained._

Under any other circumstances he would have been relieved at finally finding someone who he understood, but he was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that she was going along with them willingly. "What are you _doing?_ " he asked her.

"Oh boy, this is gonna be awkward," she said. "But hey, good news!" she said, with an over-wide smile. "I passed my test!" Her smile dissolved, and she blinked back tears. "You were _super_ sweet to be concerned, and it was really nice of you to go around saving all those people -- seriously, thank you -- but uh, we're all pretty much fucked today, I guess. I'm really sorry about whatever happens next. But I _did_ tell you to leave." And with that, Nisroc walked into Hell, and didn't look back.

* * *

Hell, was... well, it was Pandemonium. Which, in and of itself was probably nothing new -- although Aziraphale was given to understand that Pandemonium was a specific place, and could well imagine a snotty Crawly saying _Angel, we're nowhere near there_ and giving him a whole lecture on geography -- but the word had more weight to it now, for some reason. Also, Crawly couldn't have given him that lecture, because he couldn't understand her at all, and neither could anyone else, apparently. As the Legions hauled him through the corridors, they first tried to get in a long line, but they were shouted at by several other demons and waved further down the corridor, where the line stretched long into the distance. It seemed that the Legions and the other demons couldn't understand each other, and Aziraphale couldn't either, so at least they were all more or less on the same baseline level of understanding, which was to say, absolutely none. So Aziraphale and the Legions went all the way to the back of the line, waited there for some hours, or perhaps days, but when the demon at the desk appeared no closer after all that time waiting, they got bored of this, and dragged Aziraphale to some sort of holding cell, shoved him in, and left.

Some of the people in there were demons, and some appeared to be the souls of the recently deceased, but they didn't seem to understand Aziraphale either -- each approached him in turn and tried to speak to him. When they'd made this determination, one of them drew a picture of a sitting figure in the dirt floor, and they opened up a little spot for him in their circle, motioning for Aziraphale to sit. And then they did something that Aziraphale would remember for quite a long time in the midst of all the terrible things humanity did to itself. It seemed that the little group, stripped of both mutually comprehensible words and any method of escape, had begun to draw pictures at each other, and, through pictures and gestures, they asked Aziraphale what had happened and how he had come here.

And Aziraphale, though his artistic talents were, perhaps, not optimal for the task, told them. He drew the great tower above the city, and a small figure coming to meet a friend. But the friend was absent -- he smudged out his doodle of Crawly -- and so he climbed the tower, met a pregnant woman who told him to leave, and went back downstairs. Centuries later, he would remember their rapt faces as he mimed the tower collapsing on the great city, and the people screaming. And then, he explained, no one had understood him, and he'd been brought down here.

There was a long... well, the group was silent as a matter of course. But there was a long stillness in the group, and finally, the shade of one woman got his attention, and drew the tower again in the dust. But her skill in art was greater than the others', and she included details that Aziraphale's crudely-drawn version had not captured. And then she looked at him, and gestured as if to say, _Was this it? Was this the tower?_

Aziraphale nodded, and she wailed, before explaining -- Aziraphale _thought_ this was what she meant -- that she had two children, and one of them lived there, in Babylon, near the tower. She drew a _very_ detailed sketch of her son's face, and pointed at him frantically, as if to ask Aziraphale, _do you know if this specific human among all of them is alive? Did you see, in the sea of panicked faces, whether he was one of them, alive?_ And Aziraphale could not help her. He didn't know if she knew she was dead and damned, and he hadn't been about to tell her anyway, but watching her weep on the slightly transparent shoulder of another dead human cemented that decision in his mind. He wished he could take her out of this place and help her find her son.

Eventually, conversation, such as it was, resumed in the little group. People drew jokes and stories, and though certainly not all of them really suited the media of gesture and sketch, it was a way to pass the time. But then, one by one, demons began to come to the holding cell, say something incomprehensible, and one of the people in the cell would understand. The humans tended to look relieved just to hear someone speaking a language they knew, but the demons appeared very resigned as they left, and a few pretended not to understand anyway. And eventually Aziraphale was alone in the cell, with no one to speak to or draw at, and nothing to hear but the eerie wailings of the damned, and echoes down the long, empty corridor, where Infernal business was apparently still being conducted. Perhaps he was imagining it, but a few times, Aziraphale thought he saw two yellow eyes at the other end of the corridor, but their owner never got near enough for him to see anything more than that.

When somebody finally came for Aziraphale, though, it wasn't Crawly. It was Nisroc, with a gaggle of Legions. "Hey, buddy, how's it going?" she asked brightly.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he asked. He'd been planning to have an argument with Crawly about whether she'd betrayed him, and found himself very disappointed she wasn't here, but Nisroc had betrayed Heaven, so Aziraphale was determined to pick a fight with her instead.

"Ugh," she said, rolling her eyes. "So, turns out Michael is a huge bitch? Like, I guess God had to sign off on it all but I'm _sure_ She would have been fine with it if She had the _real_ story, Michael probably --"

"What are you doing here in front of my cell?" Aziraphale cut in. "Can you get me out of here?"

"Hmm, well, yes and no?" said Nisroc. "Satan's authorized me to give you his proposal, and if you accept it, _you_ can get you out of here."

"But you're not even a demon yet!" said Aziraphale. "Are you?" He squinted at her. She didn't look like a demon, but maybe it was subtle.

"Nope," she said. "He's too busy fixing everyone's languages to remake me, all he did was give me Hell's new standard common language. Turns out I'm the only person we know can talk to you already, so..." She said something incomprehensible to the Legions, one of whom presented her with a clay tablet. "Okay, so, just so you know the stakes of this? Good news is, my whole status isn't gonna be affected by whether I can get you to do this, so no pressure there. Bad news is, I _think_ they might kill you if you don't? So, probably a lot of pressure overall! Sorry about that," she said.

Aziraphale sighed. "What exactly _is_ the deal? Do they want me to become a demon?"

"Pretty much, yeah," said Nisroc. "I guess some other demon was talking about what a great asset you'd be? Slimy or something, I don't know, Satan trusts whoever they are."

His heart sank. Crawly _had_ betrayed him, hadn't she? He might as well stop pretending it was at all likely that she hadn't. "Crawly," he said.

"Yeah, something like that," Nisroc said. She skimmed the tablet. "You won't get to keep your name, unfortunately -- but honestly, probably more trouble than it's worth if you're not pregnant? Like, that was why I did that whole --" She waved vaguely upwards. "-- y'know, that thing. Also, apparently you have _no_ control over what kind of animal stuff you end up with, just generally? I am so worried. Like what if Satan turns me into a slug or something? That would ruin my _whole_ aesthetic." She looked at Aziraphale. "Sorry, don't want to make you worry, I'm sure you'll be fine on that count. You'd make a _great_ slug."

Aziraphale gritted his teeth. "Is there anything I actually get out of this supposed deal?" he asked.

"You get to live," said Nisroc. "If you want more you can probably negotiate up? But also Satan's a _huge_ asshole so I super wouldn't bother if I was you. I did and it's still a _really_ shitty deal."

"Why did you take it, then?" he asked.

"My options are pretty limited these days," said Nisroc. "Being powerless but unchanging and immortal, doomed to walk the Earth forever, accepted neither by Heaven nor Hell was not cutting it. Especially since being pregnant literally forever is worse than Hell. Or, I think it is? God, I hope it is," she said, sighing.

"Ah," said Aziraphale. "So -- you actually are --"

"Yeah, like I said, Michael got really mad," said Nisroc. "Although actually I think Raphael snitched on me? Which I would not have expected out of him. Don't trust that fucker."

"I... didn't think anybody did?" Aziraphale said. There had been a big scandal a while back, where it had become obvious that Raphael's blueprints for primates and Gabriel's blueprints for humans were _awfully_ similar, enough so that somebody had obviously been copying. Officially, no conclusion had ever been reached; unofficially, though, Raphael had been pushed out of all the important decision-making and shuffled off to the perpetually understaffed Recorporation Office.

"Well, good for them," said Nisroc. "So, uh, what do you say? You gonna take the offer?

"You make it sound so appealing," said Aziraphale, "how could I possibly say no?"

"Yeah, no, I get that it sucks," said Nisroc. "Listen, do you know anyone else down here you could bribe?" Aziraphale looked pointedly at the Legions. "Oh, don't worry about them, they don't understand me," she said. "Isn't that right?" she asked them. "You are all _very_ cute, but kinda stupid! It's great!" They smiled confusedly at her, and Aziraphale was satisfied that they didn't understand her.

"Why can't you help me, then?" he asked.

"Oh, no, I don't think I should. Everything's a little..." She made a gesture representing the shakiness of the situation. "Like, if it was just me I'd totally help, but I'm kinda scheming for two here?"

"Ah," said Aziraphale. He was still so terribly uncomfortable with the idea of... of _reproducing_ like that with humans. Still, he tried to dredge up some of the etiquette he had learned for dealing with new parents. "Is it a boy or a girl?" he asked.

"Probably," said Nisroc, shrugging. "I just want it to be okay. I'm _sure_ God would have understood if I could have explained. It's _creation,_ that's her _jam._ " She began to cry again, and tearfully turned to the Legions, giving them some instruction Aziraphale didn't understand. They looked very sympathetic, and scurried off. Nisroc wiped the tears from her eyes quickly. "Sorry," she said. "I just -- I really don't wanna be a demon, what if I don't even want my kid after all of this? What if I'm a totally different person?"

Aziraphale felt terrible for her then. "Is that what happens?" he asked. What had Crawly been like, before she had become this? He couldn't really imagine her as a better person -- not that she was particularly good, and not that badness was fundamental to her personality, but... he didn't really like the idea of a Better Crawly. Unless maybe it was a Crawly who hadn't got him stuck _here_.

"I don't know," said Nisroc. "That's what everyone says happens? That you stop being able to love, and, and you can't be nice, and stuff like that."

"Oh, I don't think that's _all_ true," said Aziraphale, surprising himself slightly. He'd thought he was just saying it to be comforting, but he did believe it. Crawly could be kind, whether she'd betrayed Aziraphale or not. "I think you'll still be yourself," he said. "Just... different."

"I really hope so," she said, blinking back more tears. "But -- but just in case I don't..." With some difficulty, she dug a little hole in the dirt with her toe. Then she showed Aziraphale the key she had. "You're gonna say no, right?"

"Well..." Aziraphale didn't want to be a demon. Hell was a miserable place, and Crawly seemed to avoid it as best she could. It wouldn't suit Aziraphale at all.

"You should say no," she said. "If you have any way of getting out of here. I bet you could bribe someone easy enough. It's a shitty job." She lifted something over her head and Aziraphale realized she'd been wearing a key on a chain around her neck. "This goes to the cell. I don't want them to connect this to me, so I'm not gonna give this to you, I know you'll bolt -- but if you can get someone to give it to you later when I have an alibi? Go for it," she said. Then she dropped the key in the hole and scuffed dirt over it. "God, I'm so tired," she said.

"You probably shouldn't have done that," Aziraphale said, eyeing the patch of dirt.

"I probably shouldn't have, yeah," she said, sadly. "But what if I stop being a good person when Satan remakes me? What if I never really did anything good at all and this is my last opportunity?"

"I think if Satan could make you a worse person against your will, he wouldn't bother with all the deals and contracts and paperwork fiddle-faddle," Aziraphale said.

"Well, I hope you're right," said Nisroc. "Ah. Looks like my pals are coming back," she said, glancing off to her left, and indeed, the cadre of Legions were stumbling towards her, all of them at once bearing aloft a small scrap of cloth, which they argued over before one of them successfully handed it to her. She dabbed at her tears with it, and gave them a grateful smile. "I'll tell him you're thinking about it but you need more time. A little while longer in here should convince you, right?"

"Perhaps," said Aziraphale, doing his best not to look at the spot where the key was buried.

"Good luck," she said, and she walked off, dabbing her eyes with the cloth and talking to the Legions in nonsense words.

* * *

It seemed like a long time before anyone visited him again, but finally, hesitantly, a figure in dark clothes crept close to Aziraphale's cell before pulling her hood down to reveal herself as Crawly.

Aziraphale did not know what to say to her now; if she had sold him out, why had she come here? She didn't look happy about any of this, so maybe she regretted her actions. (Or... maybe she hadn't actually betrayed Aziraphale?) It became obvious, though, as soon as she opened her mouth, that Aziraphale probably couldn't say anything to her, because she still wasn't saying anything he could understand.

"I don't know what you're saying," said Aziraphale, and then, waving his hands for her to stop, he drew a pictograph of himself in the cage, and then an arrow coming out, then scuffed it out and drew the stick figure following a snake away from some flames. He looked hopefully at Crawly.

She knelt and drew, on her side... well, it was a figure with large horns and bat wings. It looked angry. It was clutching another, smaller figure... Aziraphale couldn't quite make out what was happening there, but it didn't seem fun. Crawly pulled a face at Aziraphale, like she was tasting something awful, but then she pointed down at the drawing, and then at Aziraphale, and then over her shoulder. Aziraphale interpreted this as _This is where you are going._

"Right, yes, so I've heard, but I don't want all of that to happen to me," said Aziraphale. "Can you --" he pointed at Crawly "-- get me --" he pointed at himself "-- out of here?"

Crawly rolled her eyes and pointed vehemently down at the drawing she'd made. She frowned at it, and began to scuff it out, but then her eyes went wide as she found something that wasn't dirt.

"Oh, no, that's nothing," he said, because he didn't want to give her the key unless she was going to actually help him get out of here. She ignored him, though, and fished the key out of the dirt. She looked at Aziraphale and held it up for him to see.

"Yes, yes, now let me out of here," he said, pointing at the door of the cell.

She sighed, looped the key around her neck, and left.

"Wait! Wait! You can't just -- you can't just _leave_ me! It's your fault I'm here!" he shouted.

Aziraphale knew she couldn't understand him, but when she glanced back at him, she looked so reproachful that he felt a little guilty. Maybe she had a plan?

Or maybe she was just going to get him and Nisroc in trouble.

Aziraphale sat stewing in his own worries in the cell for a long while. Around him, the business of Hell seemed to be resuming again, slowly and agonizingly, as more and more demons were able to communicate with each other. It wasn't really an improvement in the demons' overall level of misery, Aziraphale thought, and he remembered those glum faces when the demons had been retrieved, one by one, from the cell, which seemed like it had been ages ago. He'd felt sorry for them at the time, but now he reminded himself that they probably deserved it, having rebelled against God and all that.

When his next visitor came for him, it was nobody Aziraphale recognized. The demon was huge, several feet taller than Aziraphale, with cruel claws on his hands and feet and scales peppering his skin. He opened the cell door and grunted at Aziraphale, and motioned for him to come forward.

The demon stank horribly, which Aziraphale was not prepared for; nor had he expected to be grabbed by his wrist and dragged bodily along, but that was what the demon did.

"Where are you taking me?" Aziraphale asked, trying very hard to keep up with the demon, so as not to find himself dragging along the floor of Hell.

The demon grunted, and turned back to him to say something -- something Aziraphale couldn't comprehend, of course. He suspected it meant "Shut up."

"Did Crawly send you?" he asked, and immediately regretted it, because the demon stopped for a moment, and looked back at him.

So he didn't ask anything else, and instead frantically tried to follow along without having his arm dragged out of his socket. Finally, the demon came to a room with a metal door. The door was glowing red, which was a very bad sign, and the demon grumbled to himself as he grabbed what appeared to be an oversized leather glove sort of thing. Aziraphale watched as the demon struggled to put it on. He ought to run, he thought. He ought to flee while the demon was preoccupied, and hide among the tunnels of Hell and try to find his way out. But he couldn't imagine that going well at all, so instead he stood there like an idiot while the demon put the glove on, opened the glowing door carefully, and pushed Aziraphale inside.

The room was not merely on fire; it was _full_ of fire. Maybe normally it was an oven, or a storage room for... extra fire? But Aziraphale knew that today it was an incinerator for angels, and that this was it. It had been a good run, he supposed; a thousand years and change. Hard to ask for more than that. Hard to ask for anything, really, when you were on fire, which Aziraphale would be soon, because the flames were closing in on him. It was already much too hot, and he yelped as the flames licked his feet, and then in one horrible moment, he was engulfed entirely in flames. He could feel his skin roasting and curling off as it charred, bits of what was inside starting to liquefy and drip into the flames, where they hissed and sputtered. The pain was enormous. Aziraphale fell to his knees, or what was left of his knees, unable to see, unable even to scream. The last coherent thought he had before giving up entirely was the realization that his lovely golden ring was melting, and the very silly realization that his clothes would be ruined.

And then the flames died down, and Aziraphale, blinking, looked down at himself. He was fine. Even his ring was fine! _Of course,_ Aziraphale thought. _Of course, how could I have doubted God, whose might is greater even than the flames of Hell?_

The door opened, and Aziraphale prepared himself for the horror of the demon, surely expecting to see only a heap of charred matter. But the demon mostly looked annoyed as he reached in and pulled Aziraphale out. "What, you want to stay in there longer?" he demanded.

"N-no, only -- I thought -- I thought that -- why can I _understand_ you?" he demanded.

The demon looked at Aziraphale, and then at the glowing red door, and then back to Aziraphale. "What is this, a joke?"

"No! I don't know what's happening!"

The demon grabbed him by the wrist again and started dragging him back the way they'd come, and Aziraphale had to hurry to keep up again, while the demon plodded along. "Don't _know?_ But you knew Crawly had you prioritized!"

"What?" Aziraphale asked.

"Yeah, I've only got about a million more demons to go but apparently Crawly sez you're more important than them," said the demon, irritably. "Got to negotiate with the boss, she sez. It's _important_ these new angels get on board fast, for morale, she tells me. I dunno what morale is but I never had any of it and I don't _want_ any of it, and maybe you should have got in on the ground floor like the rest of us, instead of expectin’ special treatment now." They were back at the cell now, and the demon pulled open the cell and shoved Aziraphale inside. "Well, you can _have_ your morale, fancy angel," he snarled. "I did my job, and Crawly better pay up." He locked the door again, and then looked at Aziraphale in the cell. His smile was surprisingly gummy as something occurred to him. "If you didn't know that was what I was here for -- what must you have thought?" Then he laughed to himself, and plodded away.

Why had Crawly subjected him to this? To negotiate with Satan, as the demon had told him? That seemed unlikely to be useful to Aziraphale, but reassuringly, it seemed equally likely to be unhelpful to Crawly, so he couldn't see why she would want him to do it. He was going to demand a full explanation from her, when she returned. _If_ she ever returned.

Not that he wanted her to return, obviously, because he was very cross with her.

But an explanation would have been nice.

Now that Aziraphale could understand all the demons complaining about their jobs, Hell was even less pleasant. Aziraphale supposed at least he was reassured that being a demon was a terrible fate, one he didn't want to suffer, but he still didn't know what terrible fate _he_ was going to suffer. He smiled and nodded at everyone who seemed to assume he would be seeing Satan soon, to make some sort of deal, but inwardly, he grew increasingly desperate for some familiarity. He hadn't seen Crawly at all since she'd taken the key, nor had he seen Nisroc, though her name seemed to be on everybody's lips, along with quite a few other coworkers of Aziraphale's. Well, _former_ coworkers, it sounded like, although some of the names were quite shocking to hear.

Shamsiel, for example, had been in Eden, and unlike Aziraphale, hadn't managed to get demoted for his role in allowing a demon to tempt Eve. And then there was poor old Penemue, who had introduced Aziraphale to the concept of restaurants, and had such lovely handwriting besides. Had Heaven really thrown all these people out?

Was it possible Heaven had abandoned _him?_ If not, it seemed like he'd had a very close call, because a lot of these angels didn’t seem to have done much worse than enjoy their time on Earth. But maybe he was here on purpose. Maybe he had evaded Heaven's judgment only to be found wanting by God Herself, and that was why he was here.

Aziraphale sat with these unhappy thoughts, listening to the demons around him gossip about people like Azazel and Yeqon and Samyaza, but he paid his surroundings little mind until all the flames in Hell's torchlit halls guttered and flared, and he realized that the demons around him had gone silent.

"Is it starting?" Aziraphale heard somebody ask, from a room down the corridor.

"Didn't you get the memo?"

"No? Is it starting?"

"What else would it be? Of course it's starting," snapped the other demon.

After a moment, the flames went back to normal, and he heard the first demon ask again, "When's the next one?"

"Keep better track of your memos and you'd know, wouldn't you?" snapped the second demon.

"Which one was that, anyway?"

"Not one of the big names, obviously, the lights barely flickered."

Aziraphale wished _he'd_ got the memo, although he supposed at least demons missed finding out about important things about as often as he did.

From then on, the guttering of the flames came fairly frequently. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed since he'd been brought down to Hell -- at least a week, but maybe more like a month? But if it was a week, Aziraphale supposed the flames were guttering and then coming back about once every few hours. Sometimes other things would happen too -- once the lights had actually gone completely out for a moment, and when they came back on the corridors of Hell were filled with an ominous fog; another time an ankle-deep flood of water had risen.

Aziraphale was given to understand, listening to the demons gripe about this, that these were all the effects of Satan remaking the fallen angels into demons. They had all gone through it, of course, and they all agreed that it was good the new people would have to suffer just as much as they had, but most of them were also very annoyed; did these new demons have to be so _obnoxious_ about it, and interrupt their work?

It didn't seem like a very good system, Aziraphale thought, especially since every now and then a damned soul escaped and he would see some poor, slightly wispy human soul fleeing through the hallways while irritated demons hunted them down.

The guttering of the flames was growing longer and longer as Satan worked his way through the minor angels, and up the choirs through the Dominions and the Virtues and the Thrones, and so it wasn't entirely unexpected when all the flames suddenly extinguished themselves completely, and stayed extinguished. There was a brief silence in the offices near Aziraphale's cell, and then suddenly about twenty voices all broke out in arguing -- about how they were supposed to do their work in these conditions, about who had stepped on whose tail, and about how there would be no extensions permitted for paperwork, and not being able to see the form wasn't an excuse. _Serves them all right,_ he thought, hoping the demons were miserable for a good long time.

And then he heard the cell door creak open.

"Oh, no, not again," he said. "Listen, I'd appreciate knowing where you're taking me, nobody tells me _anything,_ and --"

He was shushed ferociously, grabbed by the wrist, and yanked out of his cell by an unseen person. They had long fingers and cool skin, but that was useless for identifying anyone. Aziraphale was strongly tempted to shake his wrist free and find somewhere to hide, but in fairness, if whoever it was was taking him somewhere Satan _wanted_ him to be, he wouldn't be getting shushed for asking about it. So he did his best to keep up, although he kept stubbing his toes, running into walls, and occasionally walking on the other person's ankles.

As Aziraphale and his mysterious... savior? Secondary kidnapper? Well, whoever they were, as the two of them hurried through the pitch black tunnels of Hell, tripping over each other and little stones in the corridors, Aziraphale felt something _wrong._ He'd been spiritually uncomfortable the whole time he was in Hell; the whole place was hostile to him, and he could feel it. It was like something was pacing just outside his physical body, waiting to seep inside him and claw him apart if he didn't pay attention. But this was different. This was... The hairs on his body all stood on end before he perceived the rumbling from behind them.

His guide broke into a run as the ground began to shake, first mildly, and then violently. Stones rained on their heads and Aziraphale's miracles were barely adequate to keep the bigger stones from shattering any of his bones as they fell to the ground. Hopefully whichever demon had taken pity on him was able to deal with the problem sufficiently themselves. Was it Crawly? Aziraphale hoped so, but he didn't dare say her name out loud, in case it got her into trouble.

(Not that he wasn't still cross with her, of course. He was very cross, and that was why he wanted to see her.)

The earthquake -- hellquake? -- became more and more severe, and Aziraphale's guide lost their grip on his wrist, but Aziraphale grabbed their arm himself -- whoever this was, whether they were saving him or using him to scheme, they probably didn't deserve to be crushed by a collapsing tunnel in Hell, and he clung to them as the whole tunnel collapsed around them.

Aziraphale stilled, because it was taking all his strength, miraculous and otherwise, to keep the crushing weight of the dirt and stone above him from crushing them both. His companion had gone still too.

With difficulty, Aziraphale made it so that some stable slabs of stone were by coincidence managing to hold up the worst of the collapse and they were only really buried in gravel and dirt. Retroactive miracles like that were hard, and he didn't really have the energy for more than one, so he'd hoped his companion might be awake to help, but easing one hand around their waist, they stayed still.

"They" was perhaps superfluous now; Aziraphale was pretty sure this was Crawly. Not that he had paid any mind to her physical form, of course. He tried not to think about that as, hanging onto her with one arm, he did an awkward sort of sidestroke through the sand and dirt and gravel around them, swimming them out of the collapsed section of the tunnel until they fell into a clear portion of tunnel.

And -- Aziraphale had to blink several times to be certain it was real -- there was _light_ coming from somewhere above, somewhere very far away. As his eyes remembered how to see again, a long, long staircase coalesced in front of him, ending in a pinprick of maybe-sky somewhere very far above them. He turned the body of his companion face-up and found that it _was_ Crawly, dusty and unhappy-looking and so horribly still that Aziraphale was certain she'd be headed to the recorporation line sooner or later.

He wiped some of the dust out of her face, because it seemed undignified to leave the body like this, even if it wasn't occupied anymore, and recoiled as Crawly began to cough.

She opened her eyes -- they were luminous in the dark -- and Aziraphale helped her sit up. "Angel," she said, looking very relieved. And then, after a moment, she looked so terribly _worried._ "Angel, I'm --" A coughing fit interrupted her. "I'm ssorry, I didn't -- it wassn't -- you have to believe --" She began coughing again, but her meaning seemed clear enough to him.

"Perhaps you shouldn't speak for a bit," said Aziraphale, helping her to her feet. "We've got a lot of stairs, it looks like; you'll want to save your breath."

It took them a while to reach the top of the stairs, and Crawly had been hurt badly by the cave-in, but the growing window of light and sky above buoyed Aziraphale's spirits enormously, and he thought Crawly felt similarly, although she was having such a difficult time that Aziraphale ended up tsking to himself and carrying her.

Crawly was indignant, at first. "Angel, don't be ridiculouss --" she started, before she had another coughing fit; Aziraphale decided that was permission enough to be ridiculous, and Crawly raised no more objections.

When they emerged into the light, it was into the city of Babylon once more, and things were much calmer than they had been before. All the light gave Aziraphale a bit of a headache, and also, he had to put Crawly down or they were going to get very strange looks.

They made their way to an inn, and got the attention of the proprietor. "Don't think she speaks any of our languages, angel," said Crawly, hoarsely.

"Have you got a room?" Aziraphale asked her, loudly and slowly, and she rolled her eyes at him and said something incomprehensible. She seemed to be asking a question, and she pointed at both Aziraphale and Crawly in turn. She held up two fingers, and looked inquiringly at the two of them, and then mimed sleeping.

"Two, yes. Two beds," said Aziraphale, because he really needed a rest, and she presented them with two keys. "No, no," he said, "only one room. One!" he said, holding up one finger. "But two --" he held up two fingers, and mimed sleeping again. "Two beds."

"Ah!" said the proprietor, and took back one of the keys.

"But has this one got two beds?" Aziraphale asked, gesturing again, and she assured them in gestures, yes, go to the room.

So Aziraphale tried to take the key, but she tugged it back, and demanded payment -- the procedure for this was that Aziraphale laid out coins on the table, hoping at some point she would agree that it was enough coins, and she watched, and then, eventually, Crowley hissed, "She's _cheating_ you, angel," grabbed the key quicker than the innkeeper could take it back, and pulled him off to go to the room. (Then she'd had another coughing fit on the stairs up, poor thing.)

This was how they ended up with one room with one bed. It was not ideal, but in fairness, Aziraphale supposed he should have expected this.

"Was I not clear enough with her, do you think?" he asked, frowning down at the bed.

"It'ss fine, you were fine," said Crawly, still winded. Technically she didn't have to breathe at all, but she did need it to speak, and also, once you were in the habit of breathing, not doing it was very uncomfortable.

"You should lie down," said Aziraphale, "you sound dreadful. Is it all just stuff in your lungs, or did you break something?"

"I don't know, and I don't --" She began coughing again, and reluctantly sat down on the bed. "Ow," she said, miserably, once the coughing fit was over. "Fuck. Could you get... sstuff out of my lungss and I'll -- _angel what the fuck,_ " she said.

Aziraphale had got out his wings, so that he could finally heal them, and he'd been ready for the pain, but he'd forgot how bad they would look, especially ignored for however many days he'd been trapped in Hell. "Got caught in the tower collapse," he said. "I suppose... I suppose that didn't have anything to do with you after all."

"No!" she said, and began coughing again. Aziraphale dragged the dust out of her lungs with a miracle, and she was able to breathe more freely, although she still winced whenever she moved. "Thanksss. Let me ssee your wingss, they're _awful,_ I'm sso sorry you had to -- Satan, did the whole tower collapse on you _specifically_ or what?"

"It sort of leaned over and fell, and I didn't get out of the way in time," said Aziraphale, unhappily. He sat, and winced as Crawly ran her long fingers gently over the wounds, treating them with stinging healing miracles.

"So _you_ didn't have anything to do with it either?" Crawly asked.

"Me? Why would _I_ \--"

"Heaven did it, ssomehow," said Crawly. "Didn't they?"

"Well, they didn't send me to do it," said Aziraphale. "I'd have told you! And not been standing under the tower waiting for you." He winced and tried to stay still as Crawly set one of the bones in his wing. "How did your meeting with the copper merchant go, anyway?"

"Horribly," said Crawly. "Basstard tried to cheat me. I mean, I knew he was going to do that, I'd sussed him out as a good target for being tempted to greed early on, but that wasn't what I was there for," she said. "Actually, if it'd gone well maybe the tower could've stayed up a little longer."

"Oh?" said Aziraphale. "Crawly! Were you trying to save Babylon from this awful disaster?" He was very touched. "I mean, it was going against God's will, that's properly demonic, I suppose, but --"

"I wasn't trying to ssave anybody," Crawly insisted. "Have you talked to the people who live around the tower? I mean, not now, can't talk to them now, they won't understand you -- but _before,_ I mean. Did you get a chance to talk to any of them about it? There, I think that'ss the last break, try the left one," she said, tapping his left wing.

Aziraphale spread the wing experimentally, flapped it, folded and unfolded it, and it felt sore, but otherwise fine. "Yes, I think you got them all. Thank you, my dear," he said, and he realized as her hands paused in running over his right wing, what he'd called her. "Very kind of you," he said, quickly, to distract her.

"I'm _not_ \--"

"And no, I hadn't talked to any of the people who lived nearby. What would they have said?" he asked Crawly. He winced as she fixed another break.

"Well, they didn't like it at all," she said. "Ruined all their views, didn't it? Gave them shade when they didn't always want it. You have a nice little second floor apartment in the middle of the city, and then suddenly this great bloody tower springs up like a -- like a -- well, it’s awkwardly phallic, only instead of just being not what you want to see, it takes up your _entire_ front room window and makes it too dark to do anything indoors. They were _so_ angry about it," said Crawly, sounding very pleased with this. "Try the right wing now?" she suggested.

Aziraphale tested his other wing. "Much better, thank you," he said, and he was a little surprised that she pulled his wing back towards her. "What are you doing?"

"Well, they look _awful_ , don't they? All clotted blood and messy feathers everywhere, I'm embarrassed to be seen with you, frankly," said Crawly. "I'll have to neaten them up."

It felt... good, having someone else run their fingers through his feathers. Aziraphale tried not to think about it; it needed doing, and she had offered. "All right," he said.

"Right!" she said, starting in on his wings. "Anyway, I thought, well that's a good source of misery, that is. And maybe other people will try and build bigger ones, and land will start getting horribly expensive because there's a big tower craze and you can fit more shops and tenants into a tower than you can into a regular building. Only... what if lightning strikes the damn thing? Then it just burns and maybe kills the people at the top, and the tower's not appealing at all and everything goes back to normal."

"Mm," said Aziraphale, who was having a bit of trouble paying attention, because he hadn't quite realized what a terrible state his wings were in until she'd started cleaning them up, and goodness, that _did_ feel good, didn't it? "Sorry, what does the copper have to do with any of this?"

"Well, I had an idea about redirecting the lightning," she said.

"Towards... people you don't like?" Aziraphale asked.

"No, no! Just, to the ground. That'd make towers safe. Or, safer, really. And then more of them would be built and they'd cause _everyone_ misery as everybody tried to build bigger and bigger buildings and eventually they'd all run out of money and stone and wood and they'd be stuck with their big stupid buildings, all hating each other."

"Do you really think so?" Aziraphale asked. "I thought it looked quite nice."

"Well, sure, _that_ one did, but once they start being _the thing to build_ there'll be imitators and some of them will be substandard and everybody knows the sequel's never as good as the first one." Crawly sounded so pleased with herself that Aziraphale felt bad contradicting her by reminding her that there would have been even nicer towers built, once human architects really got used to working with the medium. It didn't matter; it was against the Will of God, so it wasn't going to happen, anyway.

Aziraphale decided, also, that he'd better neaten up his own wings, because that felt -- maybe -- _too_ good? Yes. Best not to make any sort of mistakes. He didn't want to end up in Nisroc's shoes. "Well!" he said, folding his wing in front of him, and standing up to walk away from the bed. "I think I can take care of the rest of this, Crawly, thank you for healing me. I think you ought to rest up, though, you've been through so much."

"But --" She looked very disappointed.

"I'll stay here with you if you like," said Aziraphale. "We haven't even had that lunch yet, have we? Why don't we do that tomorrow?" he suggested.

"We don't have to -- if you don't want --" She looked embarrassed, for some reason.

"Crawly, you did save me from Hell, I do think I owe you lunch, at the very least, and, well, I know you like sleep, and I think you need rest. I had to carry you up those stairs!"

"Didn't _have_ to," she muttered. "But... oh, fine," she said, rolling her eyes. "If it makes you happy." So she lay down and closed her eyes, and if Aziraphale ended up settling in next to her, one newly-preened wing laying over her, that was his own business. And if Crawly ended up deciding she was too comfortable to move and going back to sleep for another few days, well... nobody had to know.

* * *

Aziraphale felt that he really ought to stay in town and see that Babylon recovered adequately, and Crawly had decided a city where nobody could understand each other was optimal for her wiles, and so, a few weeks later, they both still happened to be in town, by coincidence, and had met up for lunch, also by coincidence, nearly every day.

"One thing I would like to know, Crawly," said Aziraphale, over a very strong drink that he didn't think was quite what he'd meant to order. It was very good, at least. "What was that awful drawing of Satan you were terrorizing me with?"

"He was remaking a fallen angel," said Crawly, as if this much was obvious.

"Ah. So you were telling me I was going to be 'remade,' said Aziraphale.

"What? No! I was telling you you had to wait until he was busy with all of that," said Crawly, pouring herself another glass of the mysterious drink. "Because of the blackouts. They had some really powerful, you know, big names in Heaven, I guess, and I knew the lights would be out for a good long time."

"Ah," said Aziraphale. "That's -- that's not how I interpreted it." He felt a bit sheepish now. "You could've been more clear, though."

"I'm not a very good artist, cut me some slack, Aziraphale," she said.

"Did you know the earthquake was coming?" Aziraphale asked.

Crawly shook her head. "Knew there'd be something like that, but I wasn't thinking _earthquake._ With the stronger ones, anyway, when their powers come back they sort of... echo. It's hard to explain. Usually not earthquakes, though."

"Did you have to go through all of that?" Aziraphale asked.

"Everyone had to go through all of that, angel," said Crawly. He must have looked appalled, because she went on, reassuringly. "And then you get your new name, and then you're done, and it's fine."

Nisroc had mentioned this, but it hadn't really stuck in Aziraphale's mind. "Did -- I'm sorry, did Satan name you _Crawly?_ " he asked.

"I didn't have much input," Crawly said, and then downed the rest of her cup. "It's fine. I'm used to it by now."

"I don't know why I expected anything better out of Satan," Aziraphale admitted.

"Could be worse. At least I don't have to work for Heaven anymore," said Crawly, and grinned at Aziraphale's sour look. "Definitely worth it."

"Well. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree," said Aziraphale.

* * *

Several millennia later, Aziraphale remembered a question he'd been meaning to ask Crowley for a while. It was a lovely morning -- it had been a _very_ lovely evening -- except that the news on the telly today was all about some people who were very angry about a new, very expensive tall building going up in front of their own, extant, very expensive tall building. It was not the first time he'd heard about something like this, and it would probably not be the last, but when Crowley came up behind him and buried his face in one of Aziraphale's wings while wrapping his hands around Aziraphale's chest, it was the first time he had the opportunity to ask the question just as it occurred to him.

"Dearest," said Aziraphale, waiting for Crowley to be done with this. He did get very silly about Aziraphale's wings sometimes, which was very flattering and quite delightful in the bedroom, but also it was sort of inconvenient the morning after, when Aziraphale wanted to sit down for a while, or go for another cup of tea.

"Mmh?" Crowley asked. He unburied his face and kissed Aziraphale on the cheek. "Yes, angel?"

"Did you --" Aziraphale gestured with his mug of tea towards the television, where the announcer was gravely explaining that the views outside of some very rich people's windows were going to change, and that this upset them greatly. "Was that you?"

"No, they did that on their own, I'm afraid," said Crowley. He tsked to himself. "The _Americans_ got all the credit for skyscrapers. _And_ the lighting rod! World's not fair, angel. I suppose it's what I get for making all those claims about starting wars and whatnot in my reports Downstairs."

"Well, I'll always know you were ahead of your time," said Aziraphale. He turned to give Crowley a quick kiss, but it lingered, and he shivered as Crowley ran his fingers along the edges of his primary feathers, with the lightest, most delicate touch. Eventually, reluctantly, he pulled away, and smiled at Crowley's surprised look. "I thought I wanted another cup of tea," said Aziraphale, putting his nearly-empty mug down on the coffee table, "but I think that can wait." He kissed Crowley again, and this time, pushed him back towards the bedroom.


End file.
